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JRsec Offline
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Random Things to Think About
1. Realignment stopped at 14 because a greater number of football playing schools threatened the stability of a conference limited to just two divisions.
(More teams will not threaten basketball because of the total number of games on a schedule. Ditto for Baseball.)

2. When the structure limitations are removed the incentive to add more schools will again take the lead.

3. There are 3 conferences with their own networks. Only 1 of them has distribution problems (the PAC). Only 1 of them is not either fully owned, or subject to majority ownership, of a major corporate network (the PAC). Gee do you think their distribution problems are just random, or perhaps tied to corporate network lobby power?

4. There are 2 conferences without their own networks: the Big 12 where tier 3 deals make it virtually impossible and the ACC where the tier 3 rights and some other rights have been leased out by parties that claim to be trying to work on a network for them, but have in reality obfuscated the ability to do so quickly through such sublets. Hmm?

5. 2 of the 3 most profitable conferences will have their own networks widely distributed. The third conference with its own network could be the third most profitable if they could get distribution. The least two profitable conferences (one due to market size, the other due to lack of interest in the largest of all of the conference markets) lag behind with prospects of a widening income gap.

6. At some point realignment will turn back again to brand and regional solidarity among its members. I expect to see such consolidation in the Big 10 and in the SEC. The PAC will get cooperation for distribution when the corporate networks get majority control over the PAC product. Then those teams held by FOX and ESPN in the Big 12 will become available.

7. The Big 12 has the best brands left on the table. Oklahoma, Kansas, and especially Texas bring instant cache for their respective top sports.

8. The ACC has 1 football top brand, F.S.U. It has several football products that would be worth more in another conference including F.S.U. Those other products are in descending value: Clemson, Virginia Tech, Miami, N.C. State, Louisville, and Georgia Tech. Place any of those schools against the upper echelon of the Big 10 or SEC and those brands instantly are worth more in their new conference to the networks holding their options than they are worth as members of the ACC.

9. The ACC has multiple top brands for basketball: Duke, North Carolina, and Syracuse are the best. Place them in the Big 10 and you multiply the value of the basketball product already there by a multiplier of 3. Adding those brands to the SEC wouldn't give the networks the same boost, although it would help the SEC dramatically to enhance its product. But either way they too are worth more placed elsewhere. But unlike football it would be best to keep those three together.

10. Nothing has fundamentally changed regarding the impetus for realignment. Income disparity and product placement still are the driving factors as they were two years ago. Waiting for new structure to accommodate further change is what is holding up the process. That change is about to be made.

11. The greater the number of conferences the less money available to the schools. Yes, each conference operates on roughly 1 entire school's portion of the conference pie. Dissolve a 10 team conference and each school will automatically see more money even if they move laterally. The elimination of 2/5 ths of the overhead then divided among 60 teams would be this: 40 million / 60 schools of an increase. It's not earth shaking but it is significant. Should a defunct conference sell its conference properties and divide it among the departing schools that too would be a nice bonus. Efficiency will spur more realignment.

12. The P5 will not always continue to play the G5 schools and will not always continue to play a broadly based NCAA tournament field. Once football is maximized, and peace over basketball and baseball was necessary to get this far, their sights will turn to maximizing profits in their #2 revenue producing sport, basketball. At that point several things could happen. We could see basketball only schools added to the 3 remaining conferences, or we could see 2 basketball only conferences formed for the upper division. Either would work just fine. The networks would add to their inventory of top flight schools and they would be pitted against the Michigan States, UCLAs, Kansas's, Duke's, and U.N.C.'s of the world to add content value.

13. When basketball is aligned more profitably, baseball will be developed.

14. It is at this point that the regional solidarity will mean the most to the 3 remaining conferences. Cutting travel expenses for basketball and baseball, and cutting travel distances for basketball and baseball fans will also help maximize profits. Here is where having Clemson, Florida State, Miami, Georgia Tech, N.C. State, and Louisville make more sense for the SEC.

***Minor caveat: We either regionalize to cut the costs involving women's athletics or we continue to bleed travel money for sports that do not support themselves. As long as Title 9 is with us becoming more regional is the only way to control losses in these non revenue sports.

15. The economy nationally is only going to get worse before it gets better. In 2008 we had the opportunity to let those ruining and manipulating the market go down in flames. Instead we bailed them out. Not until their corruption is bankrupted will the economy return to a healthy ebb and flow. Until then we are in for stagflation like Japan has been for 30 years now. Higher education will shrink because of cost benefit analysis by its consumers. They won't be able to pay more for an education that doesn't guarantee them more income potential. While this may vary according to the kind of education they pursue, the across the board tendency shows that they will be paying more for less and in most cases a lot more for a lot less. Demand will dry up. While the conference realignment issue could well be cyclical, the desire for smaller more manageable conferences will not exist until their is another boom cycle. If you think of larger conferences as a circling of the economic wagon train while under the attack of hostile market forces you can see the logic. When those forces attacking the group are gone they will spread back out to go on their way. But that is decades away. Right now revenue equals lifeline and the savings of more by reducing the overhead equals more revenue, so look for realignment groupings to get larger for the safety in numbers approach to stability.

16. The longer the economic downturn lasts the larger, but more exclusive, the conference groupings will get and the fewer total number of major conferences we will have. It is not inconceivable that the number could go as low as 2. But it is far more likely due to geography that we stop at 3.

As always I'd love to hear your thoughts on these matters.
(This post was last modified: 01-12-2014 09:00 AM by JRsec.)
01-11-2014 08:00 AM
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